Recent Posts

351

Living Room / Re: Facebook urged over 'panic button'

« Last post by CWuestefeld on March 19, 2010, 10:45 AM »

Internet Restrictions (Whether it be firewalls or bans from actually going online) == Good.

-Stephen66515 (March 19, 2010, 10:00 AM)

Ahem. Please allow me to amend that:

Internet Restrictions as deployed and configured by parents (Whether it be firewalls or bans from actually going online) == Good.

We don't want to be advocating nationally-mandated censorship like China and Australia.

352

General Software Discussion / Re: save ebay auctions webpages

« Last post by CWuestefeld on March 18, 2010, 04:25 PM »

I'd think that saving into an MHT file would be more effective than saving as PDF.

353

General Software Discussion / Re: save ebay auctions webpages

« Last post by CWuestefeld on March 17, 2010, 11:44 AM »

There are any number of note-taking apps that will do this kind of thing for you (except maybe the JS?).

Take a look at EverNote, which seems to be the leader in this kind of thing.

I'm partial to Zoot (http://www.zootsoftware.com/). It's current version 5 is text-only, but V6 captures full web pages, and is in late beta.

354

Living Room / Re: Facebook urged over 'panic button'

« Last post by CWuestefeld on March 17, 2010, 11:40 AM »

WTF??? Reality check!

-Renegade (March 16, 2010, 11:04 PM)

+1 to Renegade. It's really a non-problem: the chances of someone being harmed due to this are like being hit by lightning. (Actually, given these lightning stats [1], I'd say that lightning is a much bigger risk).

But on the other hand, the danger of lives being ruined because of false reports is far greater. If they're so naive that they're in danger from a pedophile, I claim they're also too naive to understand they'd do to someone by reporting them as a pedophile. ("Jane's dad just told me I'm not allowed to see her anymore; I'll show him...")

[1] See http://www.lightning...noaa.gov/medical.htm
For 2008: Total deaths=60, Est. injuries=540

355

Developer's Corner / Re: Fabricate: the better "make". Finds dependencies automatically for any language

« Last post by CWuestefeld on March 12, 2010, 12:06 PM »

fabricate[/b] is a build tool that finds dependencies automatically for any language

-berwyn (July 27, 2009, 05:24 AM)

How does that work? It seems rather magical to me.

356

Living Room / Re: Speaking Of: Torrent Sites

« Last post by CWuestefeld on March 10, 2010, 12:13 PM »

FTP doesn't have any sliding-windows stuff built in, that's part of TCP

-f0dder (March 10, 2010, 12:01 PM)

You're right of course. I think I was assuming that on a single monolithic FTP transfer, the window size will grow to a large value and stay there for the rest of the transfer. But BT transfers are typically lots of short-lived connections that open and close. In these cases it would start with a small window, and maybe disconnect before it even gets to the max size (I don't know how long that takes). So with BT, a larger portion of the file will be transferred through smaller-sized windows.

In any case, the point that BT simply externalizes the bandwidth costs so that it's borne by other parties (consumers or ISPs) is true regardless.

357

Living Room / Re: Speaking Of: Torrent Sites

« Last post by CWuestefeld on March 10, 2010, 11:55 AM »

Bandwidth is saved, money is saved, and this reflects (sometimes) on the end price of a product

-Stephen66515 (March 10, 2010, 11:40 AM)

I don't think that's true in the big picture. All that's saved is the bandwidth expense for the publisher. But at least as much bandwidth is used overall. The difference is that you are paying for the bandwidth. Of course, since the custom at least in the USA is to purchase unlimited data transfer within the bandwidth, you don't see the difference. But everyone's Internet connection will be slightly higher because of it, offsetting the cheaper price for the software product.

And actually, I bet that it's a net loss overall. FTP is a very efficient protocol, with its sliding windows based on transmission accuracy. But I don't think BT does that, and moreover it must be using additional bandwidth in discovering additional peers.

358

Python / Re: Functional programming test in Python. Finding the smallest item

« Last post by CWuestefeld on February 23, 2010, 11:53 AM »

That's similar to the QuickSort algorithm. Recursively break the set into pairs, with one pair having everything < a given value, the other having those >=.

One difference is that QS assumes that the first item in a given (sub)set is a good representative of the median value. Thus, QS is O(N log(N)) on average (typical with random data), but if you're data is already sorted it falls to O(N^2) like a Bubble Sort.

Anyway, you're still stuck with O(N log(N)) complexity on something that's theoretically possible in O(N) for any input dataset.

But I'm still learning functional programming myself, and don't know how to do any better than your proposal.

359

General Software Discussion / Re: Why OpenOffice? Why Microsoft Office? Each one makes their argument

« Last post by CWuestefeld on February 21, 2010, 09:10 AM »

What I always found very convenient in RagTime was the ability to include a fully working excel worksheet inside your letter/report/whatever DTP'ed document as well. Which is very likely why they have their own binary format to store files.

-Shades (February 21, 2010, 07:48 AM)

Isn't that just standard OLE embedding? I do this kind of thing all the time, like embedding a spreadsheet inside a PowerPoint presentation.

360

General Software Discussion / Re: Why OpenOffice? Why Microsoft Office? Each one makes their argument

« Last post by CWuestefeld on February 19, 2010, 01:23 PM »

I'm still primarily a MS Office user. Of course it's the standard, but it does have good points as well.

But if I were paying myself (rather than getting it through my work), it would *not* be OpenOffice. As TucknDar says, SoftMaker's product is fabulous. The price is remarkably low, and for what I need and the way I like to work, it's just head-and-shoulders superior to OpenOffice.

So I own three copies of SoftMaker Office. One on my notebook (Windows), one on my netbook (Ubuntu), and one on my PocketPC. My main desktop machine has Microsoft.

361

General Software Discussion / Re: Why the aversion to .NET Frameworks?

« Last post by CWuestefeld on February 17, 2010, 04:21 PM »

As I now have to deal with the very real possibility that there is now a new problem that I just created by installing X which is (conflicting with Y) now compounding the issue that got me called to the site in the first place.

-Stoic Joker (February 17, 2010, 03:51 PM)

And this is different from all the other "DLL Hell" issues out there how?  I mean just because it is a different name doesn't change the way you troubleshoot.  And just because the technology changed doesn't mean that the issue is new.  It just looks different with a different player.

-steeladept (February 17, 2010, 03:58 PM)

I've never, ever seen this happen with a .Net application.

One of the big advances that .Net gives you over the old COM model that's tied up with the Windows registry is that .Net understands versioning of code. It's perfectly possible for two apps to want different versions of an assembly, but (if the code is built properly) .Net is able to handle this automatically and provide the correct versions as required. That's what strong naming and the GAC are all about.

Properly building this stuff as a developer can be a pain, but the thing is, at least you're able to worry about it if you choose to. Other Windows frameworks don't even give you the opportunity, and I'm not aware of any other framework on other platforms that do either.

362

General Software Discussion / Re: Why the aversion to .NET Frameworks?

« Last post by CWuestefeld on February 17, 2010, 03:44 PM »

Last spring I set up a netbook with Unbuntu linux, and the distro came with Mono in it. So it's not just pervasive on Windows, but common in linux as well. And from everything I read, current versions of Mono do a darned good job so long as the whole app is .Net without native code thrown in.

If you're willing to target Vista or Win7, you should be willing to target .Net, because both of those versions of Windows come with .Net preinstalled.

363

Living Room / Re: Advice of Media Player/Center

« Last post by CWuestefeld on February 16, 2010, 03:01 PM »

In my bedroom I have a US$200 EeePC netbook running XBMC (XBox Media Center, http://xbmc.org/ ). This covers all of your requirements, with a couple of caveats:

HD - I've got a little EeePC 900A, and its processor can only get as far as 720p. A different device might get you all the way to 1080, I don't know.

Stream from web - In principle it does this, and I use it on the XBox in my family room. But the Linux distro of XBMC doesn't come with the scripts that accomplish it. I'm not sure if you can just steal the same scripts from the XBox or Windows distributions.

Storage - obviously on a netbook, storage is limited. You might get away with a moderately sized music collection, but you're not going to have on-board storage for movies. For that you'd have to supplement it with something external. In my house I have a NAS for this (a D-Link DNS-321 with two 1TB drives in a mirrored RAID array).

364

General Software Discussion / Re: The best Media manager?

« Last post by CWuestefeld on February 16, 2010, 02:55 PM »

Take a look at XBMC (XBox Media Center, http://xbmc.org/ ). Despite the name, it runs also on Windows, Linux, etc.

It supports the whole gamut of formats, has library support, and so on.

I'm currently running this in my family room on an old XBox, and in my bedroom on an EeePC netbook with Ubuntu.

365

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: iPrint v6 is Freeware!

« Last post by CWuestefeld on January 13, 2010, 04:16 PM »

I've found Printliminator bookmarklet to be very easy to use with Firefox.

-Curt (December 22, 2009, 04:33 PM)

You might consider for this purpose Readability (http://lab.arc90.com...riments/readability/ ), which is the best bookmarklet ever, automatically reformatting the page and getting rid of the crappy ads and navigation while magically figuring out what stuff it should keep.

Also, the Firefox extension Aardvark (https://addons.mozil...S/firefox/addon/4111 ) allows you to selectively edit a page, including removing elements and stripping out width restrictions.

366

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: Site included in Browser Defender

« Last post by CWuestefeld on January 11, 2010, 12:11 PM »

A few years ago, when my dog Andy was a puppy, I had a webcam set up so I could monitor what he was doing while I was at work. One day I came in and discovered that WebSense was blocking my puppy-cam -- and tagging it as "adult content". While it was true that Andy was naked, I hardly thought it warranted that designation.

I emailed the WebSense people, and they took me off the list graciously enough.

367

Best Weather Monitor Tool / Re: There aren't many great choices for weather software

« Last post by CWuestefeld on January 07, 2010, 11:09 AM »

I'm still sticking with the last free version of Weather Watcher.

Meteo looked nice. Weather Center was nice if rather busy. But neither of these support hourly forecasts, which is something I use all the time.

368

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: N.A.N.Y. 2010 PRE-RELEASE - SwoopoSpy

« Last post by CWuestefeld on December 31, 2009, 03:17 PM »

a friend of mine coded a site http://www.operationeagleeye.com.  It's free- you can give donations

-wraith808 (December 31, 2009, 03:05 PM)

Can you check that URL? My DNS here isn't resolving it.

369

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: N.A.N.Y. 2010 PRE-RELEASE - SwoopoSpy

« Last post by CWuestefeld on December 31, 2009, 02:33 PM »

This looks like good work, but you might want to consider:

In short, swoopo is about as close to pure, distilled evil in a business plan as I've ever seen. -- From Coding Horror

I have to admit to a certain admiration of this sick scheme. It's brilliant. It probably isn't even illegal, and probably can't be made illegal easily. And with the outrageous return-on-investment the company makes on their product, it's going to be impossible to dry up the pool of marks enough to put them entirely out of business. -- http://www.jerf.org/iri/post/2888

Here's a case of someone who bought a Wii console system for a bid price of $183.60, but along the way had to place 427 bids, thus paying $320.25 for the privilege of then spending an additional $183.60 to actually buy the product. Even at the top-dollar resale value listed for the product of $249.99, that's a net overspend. And you can find a new Wii system for a lot less than $249.99 with minimal searching. -- http://notapottedpla...-evil-and-gives.html

370

Word Processor Roundup / Re: Textmaker (Softmaker/Ashampoo Office) 2008

« Last post by CWuestefeld on December 18, 2009, 10:02 AM »

Now you can also download all 3 different Linux-Installers of Softmaker Office 2008 

-Crush (December 18, 2009, 08:43 AM)

I own the 2008 version of the app in all three flavors: Windows, Linux, and PocketPC.

The Linux version was the easiest install of any 3rd party app I've encountered. It took me 2 minutes, compared to, say, XBMC, which took me at least an hour.

371

Developer's Corner / Re: Rearranging one item within a dataset

« Last post by CWuestefeld on December 16, 2009, 02:07 PM »

First, tell those two people to grow up. They can still acknowledge that their previous partner is human. And letting their personal life and professional life overlap (if that's what's happening) is a recipe for problems.

Second, Having to break the natural alphabetic ordering is going to make the application more difficult for everyone else to use.

Third, why not sort by first name instead? Is there any other meaningful sort criteria?

372

Developer's Corner / Re: Can Buttons be Dynamically Moved, Resized, etc. in Your Language?

« Last post by CWuestefeld on December 16, 2009, 02:00 PM »

This isn't actually a language question. It's a platform question. For example, the difficulty of doing this in C++ is wildly different depending on whether you're using Win32 API or MFC; when using Java, it differs much if you use Swing vs. SWT. And conversely, if you use .Net WinForms, the experience is the same whether you're using C# or VB.

The resizing of the button is probably trivial in any modern GUI platform. Your requirement to shift around other buttons is a somewhat larger challenge. If these aspects are your primary driver, then I'd focus on a GUI platform that offers some sort of layout manager. I know that such beasts exist for Java, and I've used them extensively under .Net's native WinForms classes. With .Net you get the language choice of C# or VB (and a few others).

Using the .Net WinForms layout managers, you can select from different layout strategies. There are a couple that might make good sense for you. One is the table layout, where you place objects just as you would in an HTML table, by assigning them to rows and columns. There's also a layout (unfortunately I forget the name) that flows your layout similar to the way HTML object (say, paragraphs with images in and around them) get shifted around, as when you resize your browser window.

373

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 Teaser: FarrWebMetaSearch

« Last post by CWuestefeld on December 15, 2009, 11:30 AM »

Cool.

Request: put in a search file for IMDB.

374

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Download SoftMaker Office 2008 for free, and SoftMaker donates money!

« Last post by CWuestefeld on December 15, 2009, 11:27 AM »

This suite is the same as the Ashampoo office suite, and has been regularly offered for well under $10. At that price, it's far superior to OpenOffice. And with this offer, making it free, I just can't see any reason to consider OpenOffice.

Obviously, MS Office remains the 800-lb gorilla. But if you don't need to use it, then SoftMaker is a great alternative. IMHO, it's far more usable than OO. It's much smaller, too, which makes a difference for portable installations. And it's a complete suite, unlike other apps like AbiWord.

In short: grab this while you can.

375

General Software Discussion / Re: "New image organizer feedback wanted"

« Last post by CWuestefeld on December 10, 2009, 04:58 PM »

I'm looking at and for libraries that can update image metadata in situ.

-StCroixSkipper (December 10, 2009, 10:57 AM)

A quick look around CodeProject has at least a few such libraries.

ExifLibrary for .NET: ...You can save the Exif metadata with the image using the Save method of the class. The writer will replace the APP1 section of the original image with the modified metadata.

EXIF tag Editor for JPG images: ...First of all, I must say that there are very good articles (here on codeProject) dealing with EXIF tag reading:
    * EXIFextractor library to extract EXIF information by Asim Goheer
    * Cexif by Davide Pizzolato
and some others explaining EXIF tag writing:
    * The ExifWorks class by Michal Altair Valasek
But as it happens most of the time, I needed a small app that would allow me to update a specific EXIF tag, and I wanted it done in C# (for learning purposes). After reading the previous articles and some other references carefully, I decided to go ahead and write a binary to solve my problems.